Peru

October 5 - 16, 2004

After sprinting through Ecuador in two weeks, topped by a 20-some hour bus ride across the desert of northern Peru, we met up in Lima with David, a co-worker and friend of Shannon's from San Diego. David and I were scheduled to hike the Inca Trail in several days, which we had booked a couple of months in advance because of its popularity. Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail are generally considered among the highlights of any trip to South America, and it lived up to the hype!

Lima (October 6, 2004)

Each town in Peru seems to have a center called the Plaza de Armas that consists of a courtyard, fountain, government buildings, and a cathedral. Naturally, the capital, Lima, has the most grand with the government palace and the national cathedral. We walked among the numerous pedestrian pathways with shops and sidewalk cafes located through central Lima, and later took a tour of the morbid crypts beneath the San Francisco Church. Several years ago, some crack scientists of some sort dug up all of the remains in order to count the bones. They had the workers collect the bones by body part and then rearrange them for display. Now, it's a popular attraction for tourists like us.

Near our hotel, the city butts up to the Pacific Ocean and drops down to the beach at the bottom of high cliffs. An upscale shopping center with beautiful views of the beach is built into the cliff. Interestingly, they say the bay is covered in fog for nine months of the year. From my time in Lima, I can confirm that it was foggy everyday. Before leaving Lima, we had lunch here. David and I tried the ceviche, raw fish "cooked" with lime juice. It was delicious.

Read Shannon's blog: Northern Peru, Lima

Cusco (October 8, 2004)

We booked a 30-hour bus ride from Lima to Cusco on a bus-cama, or "bed bus". The seats are designed to recline fully to allow you to sleep, they serve meals, and American movies play except overnight. After a rather uneventful overnight portion of the trip -- only one brief breakdown, we arrived at an intermediate station for an hour layover. It turns out that the bus normally used for this route is out of service, and so they planned to put us on an economy-class bus for the remainder of the trip. After loading all of our stuff onto the economy bus, many of the Peruvians, who had paid for the high-class service, were having none of it. They caused such a fuss that the company finally agreed to redirect a different bus headed for Lima. The moved the Lima bus passengers onto the economy bus, which quickly left us in the dust on the sidewalk. It turns out that their luxury bus had serious engine problems and would not be ready to go for at least 4 more hours! Now that it was the only bus left in the station, there was nothing left to complain about. I wonder if anyone learned a lesson from that.

While Cusco, brought to life with bright flowers, fountains, and weekly parades, is perhaps the most excellently preserved and restored colonial city I've seen, the bombardment of tourists is only matched by the beach resorts in Mexico. Stepping outside, you are immediately surrounded by people wanting money. They may be simply begging, selling trinkets, shining shoes, or trying to get you to come into a restaurant or shop. There must be 20 little boys running around town trying to sell postcards. All restaurants had the same menu -- brick-oven pizza, pasta, Mexican burritos, and a few standard Peruvian dishes including llama and guinea pig. When passing a restaurant, a sample menu is pushed into your hands. If you say no, the pushers say the only English phrase that most of them know, "Maybe later."

One afternoon, I wandered, literally, to the other side of the tracks, and stumbled into the local's market. Here I felt welcomed and comfortable to shop at leisure. I bought a used GAP raincoat and some new, Chinese-made socks.

Read Shannon's blog: Cusco

...Tourism is so strongly the livelihood of the people of Cusco, that even the indigenous women and children have made an occupation out of dressing up in colorful, bright, and (very uncharacteristically) clean, traditional clothes, and charging money for photographs! Some were carrying babies, others were posing with llamas, a couple of children were carrying baby lambs! They were picture perfect!

We had a relaxing day on Saturday. We had lunch on a balcony overlooking the Plaza de Armas, which is designed much like that in Lima, with a fountain in a park, surrounded by a cathedral, a couple of churches, and two colonial arcade style shopping strips. But the central park in Cusco is planted with a large, colorful collection of flowers which add so much beauty and vitality to the square! After lunch we wandered the charming cobblestone streets and alleys of the town in search of a few remaining supplies needed for the hike. The streets of Cusco still have the remains of many Incan stone walls, arches, and doorways, on top of which the modern construction has been built. After dinner, we had a few drinks at a local bar with a live Peruvian band. The Peruvian pan-pipe, a collection of varied length bamboo pipes, has definitely become my favorite instrument. It is such a soft, enchanting sound!

Saqsaywaman (October 10, 2004)

The afternoon before beginning the hike, we took a horseback ride through some of the nearby ruins site in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Some of the finest Incan craftsmanship of large boulders fitted smoothly into natural stone walls can be seen here.

Inca Trail (October 11, 2004)

The standard Inca Trail hike is 4-days along the stone path highway constructed by the Inca empire in the 1500s. In there socialist society, they created highways, dotted with Inns, lookouts stations, and highly-productive farms built into the sides of mountains. Most of the trail today follows the original route, but the path itself is restored. In few sections, the fine Inca workmanship has lasted. In these ancient stretches the path is smooth, using tunnels through the rock, built-up overhangs over the cliff, and steps carved from stone.

The experience was excellent, what I might call a luxury hike. Our group of sixteen tourists had two bilingual guides and 9 porters, who carried everything, set up camp, and cooked fine meals. The guides added a tremendous amount to the hike. Every couple of hours we stopped and one of the guides told us a bit of history, culture, or about a site we were looking at. We had a big breakfast between 5 and 7 each day and a fruit and candy snack around 10. The porters quickly ran ahead of us carrying cooking gear, food, tents, and the rest of the camping equipment. At lunch time, we would catch up to them, where they already had set up a dining tent and prepared a hot meal for us. After lunch, we made another hike for two or three hours until we reached our campsite for the night. Again, the porters had our sleeping tents set up, and a snack with hot coffee and tea waiting for us in the dining tent.

Before each meal, bowls of hot water, soap, and hand towels were laid out for each of us to wash our hands. Dinners were huge, consisting of chicken, fish, pasta, rice, vegetables, and a desert. Our chef even carved and pieced together radishes and carrots to look like little birds.

Machu Picchu (October 14, 2004)

The great ancient city of Machu Picchu was both carved out of rock in place on the stony mountaintop and added to by shaping other stone from the area. The finest stonework was used in homes of the elite, while the standard structures were more rough. Standing in isolation, the city withstood Spanish invasion for decades before the citizens finally abandoned the site to hide in the jungle. The city was still under construction when it was deserted.

My favorite story of Machu Picchu is how it was re-discovered in the 1930s. The existence of a great city in the mountains had been rumored for centuries, so a treasure hunter, hoping to loot the ancient city of gold and jewels, continued asking around the locals. When he finally found the site, it was inhabited by a poor family who had fled poverty in the big city. The family had re-thatched the roof of one of an ancient stone home and was actively cultivating a fertile terraced garden. The Incans had designed the terraces with great care, specifically filling them with rocks for drainage, mud and sand for holding the right amount of rain water for the area, and fertile top soil. Hundreds of years later, the design was still working well for this poor family.

Read Shannon's blog: Machu Picchu

Arequipa (October 16, 2004)

Shannon's Blog Entry from October 16th

Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru after Lima, is referred to as “the White City” because most of the city center is constructed with sillar, a white stone of petrified volcanic ash from the nearby Chachani volcano. Arequipa rests in a valley overlooked by three volcanoes, the magnificent El Misti, and the smaller Chachani, and Pichu Pichu.

In Arequipa, we visited the Santa Catalina Convent. This convent was built in 1580 as a complete, self-contained, miniature walled colonial town within Arequipa, within whose walls over 450 nuns lived in total seclusion for 400 years. All affairs within the convent were shrouded in secrecy until 1970 when the doors were opened to the public. The confines of the convent are particularly charming with cobblestone alleys, brightly painted adobe walls, flower gardens, courtyards, and fantastic views of the snow-capped mountains surrounding Arequipa. If a girl were to choose to live her life as a nun, I would imagine that the serene and pleasant atmosphere of this quaint, tiny town would be an ideal place to live. But I was horrified to hear that it was traditional at the time for wealthy families to commit their second daughters to the convent! The second daughter was typically sent to complete her schooling at the convent at the age of twelve. And, though, at the age of sixteen, she was allowed a one-time opportunity to decide to leave the convent, it was considered a great disgrace to her family if she chose to leave.

The second museum we visited in Arequipa, the Museo Santuarios Andinos, was a museum containing the frozen mummies of children who were sacrificed by the Incas on Mount Ampato, near Arequipa, around five centuries ago. These mummies, whose bodies had been preserved for so long by the freezing conditions on the mountain top, were discovered in 1995 after a nearby volcano erupted causing Ampato’s snow-cap to melt. The most famous mummy (because of how well she is preserved ) is named “Juanita”. She is thought to have been between twelve and fourteen years old when she was sacrificed. She is actually so well-preserved, with remaining hair, skin, and clothes, and with her figure still crouched in the position in which she was left on the mountaintop, that it is a horrifying site. The pamphlet they handed to us outside of the museum claimed that the world is a better place for the knowledge we have gained (and will continue to gain) from finding and studying “Juanita”. I cannot imagine how!

See more of Peru.